Simple Stitches
by Alory Shannon
Summary: Mikoto finds a way to patch things up between her sons, at least this time. Pre-massacre Uchiha fic. Oneshot.


Mikoto blinks in surprise on sliding open her front door. She's just come in from shopping at the market for tonight's dinner, and she'd asked Itachi to keep an eye on Sasuke while she was gone, so finding him sitting there on the _genkan_ step is a little unexpected. He's already got his sandals on, she notes, yet he's still just sitting there, head bowed, forearms resting on his knees, waiting.

"Itachi?"

He stands as she steps inside, moving past her towards the still-open door, head down just enough to conceal whatever expression is on his face with his long hair.

"Finished your homework already?" she asks brightly as she sets her bag down on the step and turns to look at him. He doesn't answer, doesn't even slow, his pace just noticeably faster than usual, not quite a run, but only barely; he doesn't even pause to close the door behind him.

Mikoto looks after him, caught between curiosity and concern. Itachi has always been a quiet child, a serious child, though he certainly smiled and laughed enough as an infant; but he has never been entirely unresponsive, not like this.

But she only has a brief moment to wonder about this subtle change in her eldest's behaviour, because once she's closed the front door, muffling the sounds of the outside world, her ears pick up the sound of a child crying.

She's darting through the house in an instant, one sandal coming off in the middle of the front hall, the other just outside the main sitting room, and she knows she'll have to clean the floors again now before Fugaku comes home, but nothing could be of less importance to her at the moment. Finding Sasuke and making sure he's alright is the only thing that matters right now.

She takes the last corner too fast, sliding a bit on the recently-polished wood floor and nearly going down in a heap, but the sobs are coming from the very next room--Sasuke's room--and she _has_ to get there now, staying on her feet thanks to a combination of sheer willpower and shinobi skill. Then she's standing in the doorway and heaving a heartfelt sigh of relief: Sasuke is curled up in the farthest corner, very much alive and from what she can see unharmed. Instead of blood, he's surrounded by what looks to be a great deal of cotton fluff, tears dripping down his cheeks and onto the mangled form of the stuffed animal he's holding in his lap.

He looks up, startled, quickly wiping his eyes when she comes in. It's a phase he's been going through lately, trying to be "tough" and "cool" like his older brother, and while he obviously wants to run to her, instead he hugs his knees more tightly, curling in on himself a little more.

Carefully hiding her smile, Mikoto crosses the room and settles herself beside him, sitting close, but not too close. Her first impulse is to gather him up in her arms, but he's not a baby any more and has said he doesn't want to be treated like one, so she settles for brushing his hair back out of his face. And for a while she just sits there, stroking his hair and silently listening as his crying turns into sniffles, then quiet hiccups.

"What happened?" she asks, dropping her hand once he's calmed down enough to get out coherent sentences. "Did you and Itachi have a fight?"

He gives a loud sniff, then nods once emphatically. "He—he said that I was a baby, 'cause I still carry Saku-chan around sometimes…'n' that stuffed animals were for girls…'n' that I should grow up faster." He squeezes the mostly-limp remains of the plush kitty in his arms tightly, as if trying to make up for failing to protect it earlier, and a note of righteous anger enters his voice. "…An' then he knocked me down an' took her away from me, an' tore out her insides!" His lip quivers a little as he looks around at the clumps of fluff littering the room, and Mikoto goes back to stroking his hair comfortingly, her expression thoughtful.

Sasuke is six now, far too old to be dragging around a stuffed animal, and yet he's just the right age for it, too, or would be if he weren't a member of a proud shinobi clan with everything to prove and no time or patience for anyone who cannot live up to their lofty standards. Perhaps it's because of this that she hasn't taken the scruffy old toy away from him yet; because she knows shinobi children are not really allowed to be children, and this is something simple and harmless, a shard of normalcy that she can let him cling to for just a while longer, always just a while longer.

Gently she takes the ruined toy from him, looking it over critically; she's not surprised to find that the damage looks worse than it actually is.

"Look, Sasuke-chan, see how the rips are nice and straight, right along these edges? That means it just tore on the seams in a few places, so it shouldn't be all that hard to fix."

Sasuke leans in to see, then blinks up at her hopefully. "…You…you can fix her?"

"I think so," Mikoto says with a smile and wink, "but I'll need your help to do it. You want Saku-chan to be nice and soft again, right? So I need you to gather up as much of this cotton fluff as you can while I go get a needle and thread. Okay?"

" 'Kay!" In a flash he's across the room, snatching up tufts of cotton as fast as he can; by the time Mikoto returns with her sewing kit, he's collected it all in a little mound in the center of the room, which he's sitting next to, looking rather anxious.

She smiles at him reassuringly as she settles herself beside him, taking the stuffed kitty and swiftly but neatly stitching all the tears but one. "Did Itachi say anything else? Before he did this to Saku-chan, I mean," she asks as she shows Sasuke how to re-stuff the toy, making sure to spread the fluff evenly and get enough but not too much into its arms and legs.

Sasuke is quiet, hesitant for a moment, then shakes his head. Mikoto understands his confusion. Itachi is usually so kind to Sasuke, looking out for him, standing up for him, taking care of him whenever Mikoto is out or busy with something. He'd been the one to give Sasuke the stuffed kitty in the first place--it had been his, but on a particularly stormy night, when even being curled up in his mother's arms hadn't been enough to get the then-two-year-old Sasuke to stop crying and shaking, Itachi had appeared silently in the doorway, stuffed toy in hand, and offered it to his younger brother. Sasuke had grabbed it, little arms locking around the plush kitty, burying his face in the soft fur; within minutes, he'd been asleep. Even after Mikoto had tucked him in and left for her own bed, Itachi had stayed with him, just in case Sasuke woke up again. Mikoto had found them curled up together on the futon the next morning, the plush kitty between them, and she smiles at the memory.

"You know, I don't think Itachi did this to make you cry."

Sasuke frowns, but waits for her to finish her explanation.

"It's just his way of looking out for you…after all, if you took Saku-chan to the Academy, the other kids might do the same thing he did. And I wouldn't be around to fix her there." Double-knotting the thread, she snips off the extra, examining the places where it had been torn closely before handing the fully-repaired kitty back to her younger son. "There, see? Good as new."

He takes it a little gingerly, then crushes it to him with obvious relief. "Thank you, Kaa-san…" She isn't sure if he's thanking her for fixing the kitty or for what she said about Itachi, though it's probably mostly for the kitty. Children his age don't usually understand complex reasoning very well yet, though from his expression, she can tell he's thinking about it. Once again, Mikoto understands his uncertainty; while she can see Itachi's logic, it's still vaguely worrisome, that he would cause his brother to be upset at him on purpose, even if it is ultimately for a good cause, that he would hurt him a little now to save him from being hurt a lot more later on.

Nonetheless, she gives Sasuke a warm smile in answer to his thanks. "Would you like to help me fix dinner?" He generally makes a mess, and things take almost twice as long when he does help, but she knows he likes doing it. And he's actually pretty good at it for a child his age, much better than she'd been, in fact--he'll be an excellent cook one day if he keeps helping her, not that she expects him to. Shinobi training and homework from the Academy will take up most of his time soon, and Fugaku would likely frown upon his son's continued interest in such a "feminine" activity during any free time he might have.

Still, for now she's glad to see his face brighten at the question, to hear the eagerness in his "Yeah! What are we making?" as they start towards the hallway together.

"Kakuni," she answers, "and I bought some fresh tomatoes that we can have with it," she adds, knowing he'll be glad to hear it; then she notices the patter of his feet has stopped, and turns back to look at him.

Sasuke is standing almost in the doorway of his room, looking down at the plush kitty in his arms. The expression on his face is surprisingly intense, and though she's curious, Mikoto just watches him. Her heart squeezes with an odd sort of bittersweet pain when, after a moment, he turns around and takes the toy over to the _tansu_ step-chest in one corner of his room, carefully pulling out one of the lower drawers and setting it inside. He looks down at it for another couple of seconds before firmly shoving the drawer closed, then he runs towards her with a smile that is wide and completely happy and that somehow seems a little older than she remembers.

But when he reaches her and takes her hand, pulling her down the hallway towards the kitchen, she just laughs and lets herself be dragged along, happily secure in her belief that even though he's growing up and she won't be able to hold on to him forever, some things will never change.


End file.
